The Slayer 314 Project: Identities
by Philip S
Summary: Sequel to Remains. Now that everyone knows what happened to Buffy in the botched 314 experiment they will have to learn to live with the consequences. The only question is whether or not Buffy wouldn't rather die.
1. Part 1

Identities (#3 of The Slayer 314 Project)  
  
by Philip S.  
  
Summary: Sequel to "Whispers" and "Remains". After learning what the Initiative has done to her, Buffy breaks down. Now it's up to her friends to find out how much of the Buffy they knew is left and save her.  
  
Spoilers: 4th Season up to the episode "Hush". After that it's AU.  
  
Rating: R  
  
Title picture:   
  
#  
  
Part 1  
  
#  
  
Sunnydale was surrounded by forests on three sides, large areas of green untouched by man except for the occasional road and hunter cabin. In a place where the Hellmouth attracted all sorts of supernatural beings these woods were dangerous to be in, especially at night. Vampires, werewolves, other less common beings that most people didn't believe in outside the fairy tales, they all made their home and/or hunting grounds here.  
  
And all of them were giving a certain spot a wide berth.  
  
The creature, if such etiquette could be applied to it, was prone on the ground, looking like a lifeless sculpture that someone had knocked over and left there. A sculpture of crimson metal, warped images of the forest surrounding it reflected on the gleaming chrome surface. The thing had no face, no defined features of any kind.  
  
The only movement of any kind was the soft rise and fall of its metal chest. It did not need to breathe, of course, but some part of the mind guiding it found the sensation soothing.  
  
"Buffy?" The voice could not be heard in the forest, only somewhere inside the smooth metallic skull.  
  
"Buffy!" The name of the speaker was Anne. It was a name she had been given by a girl called Buffy Summers, since the name her creator had intended for her was not to her liking. She had a serial number somewhere inside her programming, but she felt it had little to do with the being she had become.  
  
Anne was a computer program. An artificial intelligence. Her purpose, the reason for her existence, had been to become the guiding mind of the android super soldier codenamed Adam One. An indestructible weapon, meant to protect the world from supernatural forces. Under the strict control of the American government, that was.  
  
In order to provide this perfect piece of hardware with an equally perfect piece of software, the creators of Adam One, the Initiative, had captured the world's greatest supernatural warrior in order to assimilate her instincts, knowledge, and memories into the android.  
  
This warrior's name was Buffy Summers. And things had gone horribly wrong.  
  
Professor Walsh, leader of the Initiative Project, had tried to use the power of the Hellmouth for her experiment. She had underestimated it, though, leading to an explosion of demonic energy. As a result Buffy found herself sharing her body with Anne now, Anne being a nearly perfect duplicate of Buffy's own mind, having patterned herself after the Slayer just like she had been intended to do. Only no one had expected her to do it so well.  
  
No one had expected Anne to become fully aware.  
  
Buffy had escaped from the explosion, miraculously unharmed, only to learn that something more had happened to her. For the Adam One android had the ability to reshape itself, to take on any form its guiding mind wanted. And it was so good at this deception that it fooled even itself.  
  
Now Anne feared that the realization of her own body's death had driven Buffy insane.  
  
The personality mainframe of Adam One resembled a vast, dark cave to Anne. This was the place where she should have reigned supreme, lording over the assembled secondary personalities like a queen. Adam One had always been intended to assimilate other personalities to provide it with the necessary information needed for its mission, but, like pretty much everything else, that had gone wrong.  
  
Anne was not the primary personality. Buffy was. And the vast space around her was filled with secondary personalities that had no business being here. Had everything gone according to plan, then Anne would have been the only one with any degree of self-awareness. All the secondary personalities would have been mere replicas, little more than complex databases for her to draw on.  
  
112 people had died during the explosion of the Initiative base.  
  
All of them were in here now.  
  
"Buffy," Anne yelled again.  
  
"She isn't answering," the residual self image of Maggy Walsh said with a snort. "The little girl has broken down completely, it seems."  
  
"I wouldn't sound so unconcerned if I were you," Anne retorted. "Buffy is the primary mind of Adam One. If her personality matrix breaks apart it will be the end of us all, including you."  
  
Walsh said nothing, retreating into the same offended silence she had kept ever since becoming aware inside the mainframe. Anne shook her head, or would have done so had she been corporeal, and turned her attention back to the primary personality grid.  
  
The matrix representing Buffy's mind seemed completely inert, having retreated into the digital equivalent of shock. Only the most rudimentary of processes were still running, like the loop that caused the android body to breathe. Buffy herself, though, was far gone.  
  
It had been like this the past two days, which was an eternity to someone like Anne, whose thought processes numbered in the trillions per second. She had tried everything she could think of to reach Buffy, but all her messages were ignored, simply disappearing into nothingness.  
  
Something had to be done. If Buffy continued like this it would be the digital equivalent of suicide and then they would all die. Anne was not sure if she or any of the others were alive in the classical sense, but she certainly did not want to die. Her mind, patterned after Buffy, remembered what it was like to be dead. Buffy had been dead and Anne found herself terrified by the experience. She did not want to repeat it.  
  
After much consideration she concluded that her own chances of snapping Buffy out of her shock were approaching zero. Yet there was a large possibility that someone else might be able to. Maybe Angel. Or one of her friends. Her mother. They might be able to reach her where Anne could not.  
  
Buffy's friends were certainly looking for her, yet there was little to no chance of them finding her here in the middle of the wilderness. The only feasible alternative was for Anne to bring Buffy to them. Which would be a lot harder than it sounded.  
  
There was an option for secondary personalities to take control of the android form, but since the secondaries had never been intended for autonomous operation due to their planned lack of self-awareness, that option required the cooperation of the primary. Like with everything else, though, Adam One did not perform according to specs in this matter.  
  
Directly after their joining, Anne had temporarily been in control. Buffy had passed out from the shock of the wounds the android had sustained in the explosion, though they had self-repaired almost immediately. Nevertheless the battle damage had activated the automatic emergency responses, which had given Anne a loophole to upload her own personality matrix into the emergency response grid, thereby taking over. It had been her that had fought against Faith, driven by Buffy's memories of how the second Slayer had hurt her. When Buffy had awakened again the emergency program had shut down and Anne had lost all control over the android.  
  
Now she needed it back.  
  
ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RESPONSE PROGRAM.  
  
PLEASE WAIT ...  
  
ERROR. EMERGENCY STATUS NEGATIVE. ALL THREAT PARAMETERS GREEN.  
  
Yeah, right. Adam One wasn't exactly in danger right now. She had to find a way around it.  
  
ACTIVATE INTERNAL DIAGNOSTIC PROGRAM. SUBJECT: PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX INTEGRITY.  
  
PLEASE WAIT ...  
  
DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE. INTEGRITY OF PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX COMPROMISED. DANGER OF MATRIX BREAKDOWN. INTERNAL REPAIR ROUTINES INSUFFICIENT. OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED.  
  
ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RESPONSE PROGRAM. OBJECTIVE: ACQUISITION OF OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE TO PREVENT BREAKDOWN OF PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX.  
  
PLEASE WAIT ...  
  
EMERGENCY RESPONSE PROGRAM ACTIVATED. SUBROUTINE INSERTED. UPLOAD SECONDARY PERSONALITY MATRIX INTO EMERGENCY CONTROL GRID. FILENAME: ANNE.  
  
With an electronic sigh Anne assumed control of Adam One. The crimson android slowly rose to its feet, at the same time reshaping itself into a form Anne was familiar with.  
  
Something that looked very much like Buffy Summers started walking toward Sunnydale.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	2. Part 2

Part 2  
  
#  
  
Giles sat on his couch, tiredly rubbing his forehead.  
  
It had been a long two days.  
  
So many things to think of. So many things to do. Everyone trying to keep themselves occupied with something to take their mind of the very thing they were all occupying themselves with.  
  
Buffy. Buffy was dead.  
  
Or maybe she wasn't. Maybe her mind, her soul, whatever it might be that made a human being, survived inside that thing the Initiative had created. For two weeks it had lived among them and no one had even suspected a thing. Oh, both Angel and Giles had suspected that something had happened to Buffy down in the Initiative lab, but never in their wildest dreams would they have suspected something like this.  
  
Was Buffy or some part of her still alive? Or had a machine somehow managed to fool itself into thinking it was a person?  
  
Buffy, or whatever she was, had escaped from the lab, too fast for anyone to stop her. Not even Faith and Angel had managed to catch up with her. Ever since then they had tried to find her, barely sleeping, scouring the town and its surroundings for Buffy. Or not Buffy. They wouldn't know until they found her.  
  
"How do you expect to find something that can change its bloody shape?" Spike had asked that question when Angel had threatened him into aiding in the search. It was a very good question, Giles had to admit. How indeed?  
  
He just knew they had to find her. Somehow.  
  
"You should get some sleep." Giles looked up when Rose McNamara came into the room. For a moment he felt an irrational bout of anger towards the other Watcher. She was the one who had told them of a Slayer's death, registered by the Council's seers. That had caused them to go back down into the Initiative lab, causing Buffy to find her own dead body.  
  
It wasn't her fault, of course. The truth would have come out eventually. A part of Giles would have liked it to be later, though. Much later.  
  
"No, I do not think so," Giles said, gladly taking the cup of tea she offered him. "I'm quite content to stay awake."  
  
To be more precise he was afraid of what he might dream should he go to sleep. From the look on her face Rose understood only too well.  
  
"Have you talked to Faith?" she changed the subject, for which he was grateful.  
  
"I did, actually," Giles sighed, leaning back on the couch. "I was surprised she didn't immediately wring my neck when I did."  
  
Rose nodded in understanding. The few days she had been here and she had already managed to make herself a pretty clear picture of the Slayer. The only Slayer now. Beneath all her tough exterior Faith was a very vulnerable and insecure person, one who seemed willing to do everything in her power to redeem herself for the things she had done, but at the same time seemed desperately afraid of letting anyone close enough to help her do it.  
  
After a long phone talk with the Council it had been agreed upon that Rose should become Faith's new Watcher. If the Slayer could be convinced to work for them again, that was.  
  
"What did she say then?" Rose asked, sitting down beside Giles.  
  
"She seemed uncertain. Said something about her bad experiences with Watchers assigned to her."  
  
Rose nodded again. Faith's first Watcher had been killed by the Vampire Kakistos while Faith had been forced to watch. Her second Watcher had turned out to be a phony. Her third had, however indirectly, quickened her slide into darkness. It was no wonder she wasn't anxious to try for a fourth time.  
  
"I guess we will have to give her some time," Rose resigned. All her life she had hoped for the chance to one day be chosen to guide a Slayer, yet she had imagined it to be under very different circumstances than these.  
  
"At least until this ... mess is cleaned up," she concluded.  
  
Giles closed his eyes. This 'mess' that was Buffy. If only they could find her. Or find some way to be certain that she was really dead. Either option would be preferable to this. Not knowing, daring to hope, yet threatened by despair.  
  
There was a tentative knock on the door and Giles stood wearily, feeling a deep-set tiredness in every single bone. Opening the door he found Willow outside, standing beside a blonde girl he didn't know.  
  
"Hi, Giles," Willow said. "This is my friend Tara. Can we come in?"  
  
Giles stepped aside, not voicing an actual invitation. It was pure habit, not in any way intentional on his part. Not that he wouldn't have been reluctant to simply invite an unknown person into his home, but it was broad daylight outside.  
  
Besides, he would actually have welcomed something as simple as a Vampire right now.  
  
"Tara is a witch," Willow started into the introduction immediately. "We met during that thing with the Gentlemen. I ... I think she can help us."  
  
The blonde girl just nodded, hiding half her face behind a curtain of hair. Giles got the impression that she was extremely shy, yet at the same time decades of experience in the supernatural made the hairs on his neck stand up straight.  
  
Whoever this girl was, she was powerful.  
  
"Wi-Willow told me w-what happened," Tara said.  
  
Giles threw the redhead a look, but Willow just nodded encouragingly. Apparently she trusted this girl.  
  
"I was browsing through the specs of this android thing," Willow said, simply refusing to think of it as whatever might remain of her best friend, "and I think we might have a chance of tracking it down by zeroing in on its magical components."  
  
"Magical components?" Rose asked, coming over from Giles' small kitchen.  
  
"Yes. The android isn't a machine, not completely at least. Apart from that strange magical metal they made it from, the Initiative apparently incorporated several other mystical artifacts into its design. There isn't a reactor or conventional energy source anywhere inside its frame. So it must get its power through magical means."  
  
A part of Giles was deeply disturbed about their conversation. They were talking about an android, a machine. A bit more complicated than his refrigerator, but just a machine. Yet might it not be more? Might they not be talking about Buffy? His Slayer? The one he should have protected?  
  
Giles found a hand resting on his shoulder and looked up into Rose's face. She understood, he realized. She, too, had been trained to guide and protect a Slayer, should she ever be chosen to be a Slayer's Watcher, and while she hadn't had that opportunity so far, she could sympathize.  
  
"With Tara's help I think I can come up with a spell to find it," Willow concluded her findings.  
  
Giles closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded.  
  
"Very well. Gather whatever you need for the spell. I'll call Angel and his friends over from the mansion. Then you can perform the spell."  
  
"That won't be necessary, I think," a new voice intruded.  
  
All heads turned toward the open door. Toward the figure that stood there, framed by sunlight.  
  
"But I guess you should call Angel and his friends regardless," the person that looked like Buffy Summers said.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	3. Part 3

Part 3  
  
#  
  
"Buffy?" Willow asked, looking at her friend standing in the door. Or what looked like her friend.  
  
"Not exactly." The Buffy-lookalike said. "I'm Anne. You know? The voice in Buffy's head? That's me. Hi!" She waved, doing a remarkable expression of a girl very unsure of her welcome.  
  
Giles, Rose, Willow, and Tara just kept staring at the waving android standing in Giles' door, unable to utter a word.  
  
"May I ... may I come in?" Anne asked after a minute of awkward silence.  
  
"Yes ... of course, come in." Giles said after another minute. "I'll ... I'll just get on the phone and call Angel and his friends."  
  
Anne walked into the apartment, doing her best to look small and harmless. She was well aware of how scared the people around her were.  
  
"They have reason to, don't they?" Riley said inside her head. "Considering what just walked into their living room."  
  
"Oh, you mean the greatest achievement of cybernetics ever created?" Prof. Walsh asked him.  
  
"The thing that killed us all, yes."  
  
"Shut up!" Anne mumbled below her breath. At least when Buffy had been in control she had only had to deal with one whispering voice in her head. Now, though, with the 112 minds inside it dreading, or looking forward to, their death, again, the chatter just didn't stop anymore.  
  
WARNING: INTEGRITY OF PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX CRITICAL. OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED URGENTLY.  
  
"That stupid girl is going to kill us all." Walsh mumbled.  
  
"Not that you didn't do a good enough job of that yourself." The witch Colleen Wing replied.  
  
Anne tuned out the voices as best as she could, concentrating instead on the people in the room. None of them were cybernetic experts, but the again the problem inside her head wasn't technological in nature. Buffy was killing herself and no amount of scientific tinkering would stop that.  
  
Maybe her friends could, though. It was Anne's last hope. She spent a few seconds trying to figure out how the concept of 'hope' had entered her programming, yet found no answer.  
  
Willow sat down across from Anne and looked at her so intensely that the android feared her casing would melt.  
  
"Just ask the question that's on your mind, Will!" Anne said when she couldn't stand it anymore.  
  
"What are you?" Willow said, then looked ashamed with herself for asking.  
  
Anne smiled at her. "I wish I could tell you, Will. I really do."  
  
Silence settled between them again. Anne was aware of the suspicious stares the Watcher Rose McNamara was giving her. The blonde girl she didn't know, but she seemed determined to do her best not to be noticed. Anne's sensors could pick up the slight tremble of magic around her, though. A witch?  
  
"A beginner more likely." Colleen Wing scoffed. "I'd be surprised if she can levitate more than a pencil."  
  
Anne was blissfully distracted when the door opened and three people came running in. One of them hid beneath a large blanket and was smoking slightly at the edges.  
  
Angel!  
  
"We came as quickly as we could." Wesley said. "Where is ... oh!" He stopped, seeing her.  
  
"Hi, guys!" Anne waved to them. "I'm ... well, I'm not Buffy. But ... hi!"  
  
Angel had discarded the blanket and just looked at her, the stare of his dark eyes a thousand times more intensive than Willow's could ever be. Anne resisted the impulse to squirm under his gaze.  
  
"You're ... looking good." Cordelia said. "Whoever you are."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Well, now that we are all here ..." Giles began, only to be interrupted by the door opening once more.  
  
"We came as quick as we could." Xander panted, followed through the door by Anya. "Is she ...?" He, too, trailed off upon seeing Anne.  
  
"She looks like Buffy." Anya announced, seemingly content with that observation. "Can we go now?"  
  
The door opened again and Faith came into the apartment. Unlike the others she said nothing, just looked at Anne with wide eyes.  
  
"Okay, I think we're really all here now." Cordelia said. "So ... what's the what?"  
  
Everyone turned to look at Anne, the few that hadn't done so before, and the android found that being the center of attention for so many people was not to her liking.  
  
"I think we can skip the preliminaries." Giles said. "Anne, if that is your name, why don't you tell us what is going on here?"  
  
Anne nodded, fully capable of seeing past the stony facade Buffy's father in all but blood was putting up. He was desperate for an answer, as were all the people present here. Desperate to know what happened to the person they all loved one way or another.  
  
The only one who seemed genuinely disinterested was Anya.  
  
"You already know the high points, I guess. The 314 experiment was supposed to create a mind for the android called Adam One. A mind patterned after the Slayer. So Walsh had Buffy captured and then everything went wrong. When Buffy realized that her body, her old body, was dead, it sent her into shock and ..."  
  
"Wow, slow down a bit here, okay?" Xander interrupted her. "I hate to be the one asking the obvious questions, but ... which Buffy are we talking about here?"  
  
"I think what Xander means," Giles elaborated, "is whether that ... mind, personality you carry inside you ... Anne ... is it really Buffy? The Buffy we know?"  
  
Anne sighed. She had feared this question would come up.  
  
"I can't tell you." She simply said. "She has all of Buffy's memories. All of her character traits. Pretty much everything that made her Buffy is in here with me."  
  
She wrapped her arms around her body, closing her eyes.  
  
"Whether that makes her Buffy, or just a perfect digital copy that thinks she's Buffy, well, I'm afraid that's a philosophical question. One I'm sure as hell not qualified to answer."  
  
Angel was the first to move after that statement. He knelt down beside the couch, putting a hand on Anne's shoulder. The gesture was so familiar, so full of memories and emotions, that Anne could barely suppress a gasp.  
  
Not her memories, she reminded herself. Not her emotions.  
  
"Where is Buffy now?" Angel asked.  
  
Anne looked up into his dark eyes, seeing the worry there.  
  
"She's ... well, she's gone into a kind of shock. Seeing her own dead body, realizing that she is not who she believed to be ... it was too much for her. I'm afraid she is busy killing herself right now."  
  
"What?" Several people all over the room jumped to their feet.  
  
"What do you mean?" Giles asked.  
  
"Buffy has seen her own dead body." Anne said. "Has seen that the body she now lives in is not hers, is not even alive in the classical sense. I think right now she is convincing herself that she is, in fact, dead. And if that happens her personality matrix will deteriorate." Seeing the blank looks on the faces around her, Anne added. "She will die."  
  
Anne shook her head, feeling things she had never been intended to feel. "And when she does she will take all of us with her. She is the primary personality of Adam One. If she dies, we all die. I don't want to die, okay? I'm not sure I'm alive, but I don't want to die!"  
  
With something very close to astonishment Anne realized that her emotional programming was in the process of overloading. It hadn't been meant for this kind of turmoil. She hadn't been meant to be like she was. How was she supposed to deal with all this? She hadn't been programmed to deal with things like panic, desperation, fear. She didn't know how to handle being scared to death.  
  
Angel still rested his hand on her shoulder.  
  
"What can we do to prevent that?" He asked calmly.  
  
There was no logical way to explain it, but his presence managed to stabilize her. Anne knew that a lot of what she was could not be explained logically. She was not just a machine, she was also magic, and, in a way she was not able to explain, alive. She wasn't a hundred percent sure of that last part, but she suspected it was true.  
  
Ignoring her logic circuits she took comfort from Angel's presence and calmness.  
  
"The problem is psychological." Anne explained. "Buffy thinks she is dead. The only way to help her is to convince her that she's not."  
  
"How can we do that?" Wesley asked. "You yourself said that you are not certain whether she is alive or just ... a copy."  
  
"We have to convince her." Anne repeated, looking down. They just had to, the alternative was unthinkable.  
  
"Very well!" Giles said after a minute of silence. "We have to talk to Buffy then. How do we do that? How do we communicate with her if she has withdrawn the way you say?"  
  
Anne looked up, the determination in Giles' eyes giving her new hope.  
  
Walsh complained. I certainly didn't program you this way.  
  
"You also didn't program me to hate your guts. So there!" Anne murmured. Out loud she continued. "I already went through all the technological options, to no avail. The only way to reach Buffy is by magic. I did a lot of thinking these past few days, going through a few billion possibilities on how to reach her this way."  
  
"A few billion?" Xander repeated, astonished.  
  
"The best bet is a form of magical trance. It would allow one or more of you to enter my personality mainframe as if you had been assimilated into Adam One. Once there you should be able to reach Buffy."  
  
She didn't tell them that she had calculated the odds for all of the few billion plans she had made. The one she had told of them of was the best, that was true. It was the only one with a chance of success greater than five percent. Barely.  
  
"So we'll somehow ... travel into your head?" Willow asked.  
  
"Talk about your fantastic voyage." Xander muttered.  
  
"Not 'we'!" Angel said. "I will go."  
  
"I will accompany you." Giles said, his voice leaving no room for argument. The two men who both loved Buffy the most, though in very different ways, looked at each other for a long moment, then Angel nodded.  
  
"It's not without danger." Anne said, though she found it very illogical to try and keep them form helping her. She couldn't help it.  
  
"We will do it!" Angel said without hesitation.  
  
Looking into Angel's dark eyes, Anne suddenly found that a possibility of success just exceeding five percent didn't bother her as much as it should.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	4. Part 4

Part 4  
  
#  
  
"Colleen, you'll have to help me with this," Anne whispered.  
  
"Seeing as I will die unless I help you, do you really doubt I will?" the witch said. Colleen Wing was the best practitioner of witchcraft the US government had on its payroll and had been selected to work the magical part of the 314 experiment.  
  
She, too, had ended up inside Adam One.  
  
"Tara and Willow will work the trance spell from the outside," Anne said. "I downloaded the details from my spell database. Anything else they need to know?"  
  
Anne felt Colleen access the spell in question, drawing it from Adam One's vast repository of magical information. In theory the android was able to work all kinds of magic itself, drawing the spell details from its database. Anne wasn't too anxious to try it, though. The only magical experience she had so far was her own creation and that hadn't exactly gone according to plan.  
  
"I think we can do that," Willow said, looking at the spell Anne had written down for them. She looked at Tara. "Can't we?"  
  
"I, I guess," Tara simply said, looking as if she was praying for the ground to swallow her up.  
  
"Just lend me your voice for a moment, will you?" Colleen asked.  
  
Anne wasn't too eager to show the people gathered around her some of the other things that had gone wrong in the 314 experiment. Like the fact that their lost friend didn't just share this artificial body with an artificial intelligence called Anne, but also with 112 other minds assimilated into its personality mainframe.  
  
Then again, they would have to find out sooner or later. At the latest when Angel and Giles succeeded into travelling into said mainframe. They would find it rather crowded.  
  
"You'll need some more details for the spell," Anne told Willow and Tara. "Prepare to see something strange, okay?"  
  
Before anyone could ask, Anne opened up a subroutine and loaded Colleen's personality matrix into the emergency response grid. Everyone present flinched a bit when the appearance of Buffy that Anne wore wavered for a moment, her features blurring like water moved by a sudden gust of wind. When she looked up again her eyes had changed color and something about her mouth and cheekbones was different. As if another face had been pasted over Buffy's own.  
  
"Listen up, witchies," Colleen said with a voice that sounded nothing like Buffy or Anne. "Here is what you have to do!"  
  
Willow and Tara listened as the android that looked like Buffy, but not quite like her anymore, explained details of magic to them that neither had ever heard of before. Willow recovered in time to write everything down, her mouth hanging open all the time.  
  
"That's it," Colleen said. "Oh, and Tara! Straighten up a bit, okay? I can tell you're quite powerful, so stop hiding behind your hair and get to work!"  
  
A moment later Buffy's features returned to the android's face, no trace of another face remaining. Everyone stared at her.  
  
"Didn't you tell me Tara isn't that powerful?" Anne whispered.  
  
"One more reason to boost her confidence," Colleen answered, somehow managing to give the mental impression of a smirk.  
  
"Okay, what was that?" Xander asked.  
  
"Colleen Wing. She is a witch that was involved in the 314 experiment. She, well, the short version is that she was also assimilated when everything went wrong."  
  
"So she is like Buffy?" Willow asked.  
  
"Not quite, no. She is a secondary personality. The Adam One android was supposed to assimilate copies of human minds to boost its own capabilities. Originally this should not have done any harm to those whose minds it copied."  
  
"Get yourself assimilated and brain sucked without ill effect! Great," Xander punned.  
  
"Anne," Angel said next to her, "is this Colleen the only other personality in there?"  
  
'How did he do that?' Anne asked herself. She shook her head. Had to be that indefinable something called intuition. She wondered if she'd ever get that.  
  
"No," she admitted. "Colleen is not the only one."  
  
"How many others?" Giles asked. "How many people are trapped in there?"  
  
Anne sighed. "Everyone who was in the Initiative base when the experiment was botched. 112 people all together."  
  
Stunned silence followed her announcement, even Angel's eyes widening a bit.  
  
"112 people?" he asked, disbelief in his voice.  
  
"Yes. And they will all die if we can't convince Buffy to live."  
  
WARNING: PRIMARY PERSONALITY MATRIX BREAKING DOWN. ESTIMATED TIME TO TOTAL MATRIX BREAKDOWN 01:27:53. OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED URGENTLY.  
  
"We don't have much time left," Anne said, a chill running through her body. Fear, she realized. Another thing she was not programmed to feel. This was getting ridiculous.  
  
"Set up the spell," Angel told Willow and Tara, who immediately went to work, the blonde girl with just the slightest bit of increased confidence if Anne read her right.  
  
"You ready, Giles?" Angel looked at the Watcher.  
  
"As can be."  
  
The two witches drew a circle on Giles' living room floor, Angel unceremoniously pushing the Watcher's couch aside as if it weighed nothing. Anne allowed Colleen to see through her eyes and checked every last detail of Willow and Tara's preparations, making sure everything was in order.  
  
"We're ready," Willow announced finally. "I think."  
  
Angel gave her an encouraging smile and sat down inside the circle, shortly followed by Giles. Anne sat down facing them.  
  
"Okay, now I have to create a connection between us," Anne explained. "Please don't freak!"  
  
She closed her eyes and without warning her hands started to change shape. What looked like human flesh reformed itself into crimson metal, then reforming again as fingers grew longer and longer, branching out like tentacles. Anne reached out toward Angel and Giles, slowly entangling them in a spider's web of crimson metal strands. She heard a gasp from someone outside the circle, but neither man in front of her flinched back as the crimson tentacles touched them.  
  
"Gross," she heard Cordelia say, which almost brought a smile to her lips.  
  
"Oh, that's nothing," Anya chirped happily. "You should see Clonack demons when they mate. It's ..."  
  
"We need silence. Please," Willow interrupted another of Anya's fascinating stories, for which Anne quietly thanked her. She remembered, or Buffy remembered, more of Anya's tales than she had ever wanted to hear.  
  
The living metal of Adam One flowed through the circle, connecting Angel and Giles to Anne. She could feel the strength of their minds already; they blazed in front of her like bonfires. She could easily have activated the assimilation procedure now, making their personalities a permanent part of her. In theory it wouldn't even harm them.  
  
Anne had no intention of trying it, though. 112 minds, not including Buffy and herself, were enough for any one body.  
  
"Brace yourselves," Anne warned the two men as Willow and Tara began to chant the spell. "Once you are inside things might get very ... disorienting. Everything you will see is just your mind interpreting things that have no true shape. Including your own self."  
  
The line of the circle began to glow softly, the light reflecting on the chrome surface of the metal tentacles that entwined the three people sitting inside. Angel and Giles closed their eyes, even as Buffy's features started to blur and fade. Power pulsed in the air as the android returned to its original featureless shape, a sexless mannequin of red chrome.  
  
With an audible snap the spell closed. Willow and Tara leaned back, sweat running down their brows. The circle was glowing a dull red and the three people inside it, or rather two people and one entity that defied description, were sitting motionless, their eyes closed, the crimson webbing between them pulsing like human veins.  
  
#  
  
Angel and Giles experienced a brief sensation of falling down a deep, dark abyss, wind rushing past them at awesome speed, then found themselves floating inside something that resembled a huge cave or dome, almost like a cathedral.  
  
"Angel?" Giles looked toward his companion and gasped.  
  
The Vampire appeared as a hideous monster, demonic features frozen on his face, his form surrounded by a cloak of shadows. Blood was staining his hands, a permanent mark on him.  
  
'Is this how Angel sees himself?' Giles wondered. Was this the only self- image he had left after 250 years without a mirror? 'Or,' another thought came to him, 'is this how I see him as well?' Every time he saw Angel he couldn't help but remember Jenny. Rationally he knew that Angel had nothing to do with her murder, and yet ...  
  
Giles himself appeared little different than he did in the outside world. A little younger maybe, as he didn't like to think of himself as old. He wondered what it said about his own psychological condition that he wore a tweed suit in here, a choice of clothing he had pretty much discarded in real life.  
  
A third presence floated toward them, a girl that looked like Buffy except for the crimson chrome skin.  
  
"Welcome to my head," Anne greeted them.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	5. Part 5

Part 5  
  
#  
  
The primary personality matrix of Adam One appeared to them as a dark, forbidding fortress, all entrances shuttered, not a single light in any of the windows. Giles and the hulking monstrosity that was Angel stood before it, trying to figure out what to do next.  
  
"We have to get her attention somehow," Anne told them. "You must snap her out of that self-destructive cycle she has locked herself in."  
  
"And how are we to do that exactly?" Giles asked. "You said she has shut herself off from every outside input. I'm not a computer expert, but communication needs both a sender and a receiver, as far as I know."  
  
Angel didn't say anything, just walked (or floated, there was no noticeable difference here) toward the edge of the fortress. One clawed hand reached out, fingers stained with the blood of innocents Angel always saw there, and touched the granite walls.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
For a long moment nothing happened, but then Giles watched in awe as the wall where Angel touched began to ripple. How often had the Watcher secretly been amused by the silly name his charge carried, but it didn't sound silly when Angel said it. From his lips it sounded like a caress, like a soft lover's touch.  
  
Suddenly Angel's image changed as well, even as the wall in front of him began to vanish and a portal opened. The vampire ridges on his face disappeared, the shadows surrounding him burned away in a ray of sunlight. It was a completely human Angel that turned around to look at Giles and Anne.  
  
"I think we found our way in."  
  
"What ...?" Giles began.  
  
"We are on the edge of Buffy's personality matrix," Anne explained to both men, Angel only now noticing how he had changed. "Going inside, we are entering her world, everything is shaped by her perceptions. Including our own images."  
  
This was how Buffy saw Angel then, Giles presumed. Human, beautiful, standing in the light. He wondered how Buffy could look past his darker side so easily. God knew Giles thought of Angel as a good man, an ally, sometimes even a friend, but there was always the painful memory of finding Jenny in his bed, her eyes staring at nothing, Angelus' gift to Buffy's Watcher.  
  
Buffy didn't see the darkness, it seemed. Somehow his own inability to do the same shamed Giles.  
  
"Let's go," Angel said, turning around again to walk into the fortress. Giles and Anne followed him while 112 shadows looked after them, silently wishing them the best of luck.  
  
#  
  
Beyond the walls the world changed. If Giles hadn't known better he would have sworn that everything here was real, not just some kind of computer- generated memory. They were walking across one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries, Restfield he believed, and the Watcher could feel the grass blades crunch beneath his feet.  
  
"We're in," Anne announced happily. "Now we just have to find Buffy."  
  
"I thought ..." Giles began, only to stop when he found no trace of Anne anywhere.  
  
"Sorry about that!" Anne's voice came from a spot somewhere behind his right shoulder. "I'm afraid that Buffy knows me just as a disembodied voice, so ..."  
  
"Ah, I understand. I think." Giles shook his head. This was certainly turning into a strange trip. "As I was saying, I thought everything here is Buffy. How are we supposed to ..."  
  
"Look," Angel said, pointing.  
  
Giles turned just in time to see a shape running past them behind a few tombstones. A shape with a mane of blond hair trailing after it like a comet's tale.  
  
"Buffy?" Giles called out, beginning to move after her.  
  
"Just a memory," he heard Anne's voice. The blonde girl in front of him stopped when a vampire stepped into her past and a furious fight ensued, ending quickly when she staked the demon through the heart.  
  
"Buffy's memories," Angel murmured. "If she thinks she isn't Buffy, why is she replaying her memories?"  
  
"I ... I'm not sure," Anne confessed.  
  
The scene around them changed, quickly replaced by another battle. More vampires, chases through graveyards. Demons, many of them, appearing one after the other. Yet more fighting, familiar faces of both friends and foes.  
  
Buffy fighting the Master and dying. The cruel taunting of Angelus, who bore almost no physical resemblance to Angel in this dreamworld. Faith and the Mayor, Spike and Drusilla. The Judge, Akathler, Luke, Darla, Mr. Trick, so many enemies, all closing in on her. Finally a squadron of Initiative soldiers, circling her from all sides, bright arcs of electricity burning into her flesh.  
  
"What is she doing?" Angel asked Anne.  
  
"I don't know, okay? I don't know."  
  
The image of Buffy was fighting all of her enemies at once, all of them ganging up on her in one large swoop. Not only her enemies, also her friends, her loved ones. Giles could see himself among the attackers, screaming terrible things at Buffy. Telling her that she wasn't his Slayer, that she was but a lie, a puppet, nothing but a cheap copy of the real thing.  
  
Everyone was screaming that at her.  
  
"She is tearing herself apart," Anne whispered, horrified.  
  
The image of Buffy began to burn, the entire graveyard going up in flames around them. They could see the skin peeling off her body, revealing crimson steel beneath it. And still her enemies and friends were attacking her, slashing at her with words and fists, taunts and claws.  
  
"We have to go in there!" Angel did not wait for a reply and started running toward the fight.  
  
"Anne?" Giles asked.  
  
"I'm making this up as I go along, Giles. I have no idea what we should do now."  
  
"Then I guess we improvise." A moment later Giles was running toward the fray as well, where Angel was already busy throwing demons and monsters away from Buffy as if they were so many puppets.  
  
Giles found himself fighting a perverted version of Willow, screaming taunts at Buffy even when he tore her away from his burning Slayer. The enemies didn't even seem to notice them; they just tried to get past them to attack Buffy again. Giles suddenly found a fighting ax in his hands and didn't question it, just used it.  
  
Angel was fighting like a man possessed, knocking the attackers away with a strength he didn't have in the real world. Again Buffy's perception of him, Giles wondered. His Slayer was always so strong, so independent. But maybe even someone like her wanted someone stronger than herself around, someone to take care of her once in a while.  
  
Until the day he went away Angel had always been that man. And maybe she thought of him that way still.  
  
After what seemed like an eternity the monsters and demons vanished, leaving only two tired warriors and what seemed like a mishmash of Buffy and Adam One, kneeling in the grass.  
  
"Buffy?" Angel asked, kneeling down beside her.  
  
The figure moved, a face that was half crimson chrome, half human flesh looked up at him, the one human eye full of tears.  
  
"Buffy is dead," she whispered. "Buffy is dead."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	6. Part 6

Part 6:  
  
#  
  
"You are not dead," Angel said softly. "You are right here."  
  
"I am not Buffy," the kneeling figure replied, tears running down her human cheek, the chrome half of her face immobile and expressionless. "I'm just some kind of copy. I'm not Buffy."  
  
"You are wrong."  
  
"Am I?" she yelled, jumping to her feet. "Look at me, Angel! Look at what I am! They made me in their lab like some kind of Frankenstein's monster. I stole the lives of over a hundred people, including your precious Buffy! I'm not even alive!"  
  
How was Angel to convince her that she was real, that she was really the person she had thought she was, if he wasn't sure of that himself? Two weeks ago, when he had first returned to Sunnydale after the Initiative lab blew sky high, he would have called anyone who told him that this wasn't Buffy a liar. He had been close to her, had watched over her as she recovered.  
  
He hadn't noticed anything. Sure, he had been sure that something else must have happened to her in that lab, something she didn't, or didn't want to, remember. But never in a million years would he have suspected what he finally found out.  
  
This wasn't Buffy. Not in body. And the rest ... he didn't know. He just didn't know.  
  
"Buffy!" Giles was by their side now, a hand softly touching her shoulder.  
  
"Don't call me that!" She flinched away from his touch. "I'm not Buffy!"  
  
Anne watched them, reduced to the disembodied voice that she was to Buffy, or whatever might remain to Buffy in the figure they were facing. She had told them the truth. In every way measurable by physics this was indeed Buffy. But did that really make her Buffy or just a copy? Was a person the sum of her character traits? The sum of her memories and ...  
  
Memories.  
  
"That's it," she yelled, causing all three of her companions to stare at her. Or at the spot the voice was coming from at least.  
  
"What ...?" Angel began.  
  
"Memories," Anne yelled. "Don't you see?"  
  
The world around them changed, Anne using all of her willpower to drag a memory out of Buffy's mind and make it manifest around them. A memory that she had seen before, as it was one of Buffy's fondest and most enjoyable recollections. A memory that Anne hadn't even realized until now should not be here.  
  
They were in a dark apartment that Angel immediately recognized as his own. The light was dimmed and the only sound was soft laughter coming from the bedroom. With a start Angel realized exactly what day this was.  
  
"I love food," someone said inside the bedroom.  
  
"Where are we?" Buffy asked, confused. "I ... I remember this place, but ... when was I here? I don't remember having been here before, but ... but I was."  
  
Angel needed a few seconds, but finally he understood why Anne was showing them this. He understood and the beginnings of a smile spread over his face.  
  
"Look at this, Buffy," he invited her, pointing toward the bedroom.  
  
She moved closer to him, the protest about him calling her Buffy already on her lips, but trailing off as she looked into the room.  
  
Buffy and Angel, sitting on the bed. Buffy dressed in nothing but one of Angel's large shirts, Angel completely nude. As they watched the couple kissed deeply, which caused ice cream from the spoon Angel was holding to drop onto his chest.  
  
"Mortal coordination leaves something to be desired," he joked, making moves to wipe it away, only to be stopped by Buffy, who lent down to lick it off his chest.  
  
Giles turned away, blushing, but Buffy was watching with fascination.  
  
"I ... I remember this, but ... how could it ... we never ... the curse."  
  
"There was no curse on that day," Angel told her. "The blood of the Mhora turned me human and we spent the day together in my apartment. That was on Thanksgiving, just a few months ago."  
  
Buffy turned toward him and Angel saw that the crimson chrome had vanished from her face. She looked completely human again, her eyes filled with confusion.  
  
"I don't understand this, Angel. I remember this day, but ... but you're not human now. How can this ...?"  
  
She trailed off and the room changed again. Buffy and Angel vanished from the bed, instead they were now standing near the kitchen. Angel looked as if he'd been through a war, bruised and battered, but it was Buffy that seemed to be on the verge of breaking, her eyes red with tears.  
  
"It's not enough time," she sobbed, holding him close.  
  
"You ... you gave it back," Buffy whispered, watching herself and Angel embrace on a day that had never been.  
  
"I will never forget," her past self chanted like a litany. "I will never forget!"  
  
The clock on the wall struck nine and the memory ended. Darkness surrounded them.  
  
"I don't understand," Buffy said.  
  
"The Oracles reversed the day for me. They told me you would die unless I was there to fight at your side, so I asked them to take my life back. When they couldn't do that they instead offered to turn back time. The day would start anew and no one but me would remember that it had happened before. I stopped Mhora before his blood could mix with mine and I never turned human."  
  
She just stared at him, her eyes flush with tears.  
  
"You ... you gave your life for mine," she whispered.  
  
"Yes, Buffy. For you. The you that is still here. Right in front of me."  
  
"No, I ... I'm not ..."  
  
"The day never happened, Buffy," he interrupted her. "The Oracles reversed time and there is no way you could possibly remember it."  
  
He stepped closer, touching her cheek with his hand, a hand that was as warm and human here in this dream world as it had been on that lost day.  
  
"Unless you carry the memories in your soul. The soul that is still here. Right where it belongs."  
  
Her hand came up, trembling, to touch his. There was so much fear in her eyes, so much confusion, that Angel wanted to die if only it would make it better. Her other hand reached out to touch him, his chest where, at least in this place, a steady heartbeat could be felt. The touch alone sufficed to bring back all the memories, bring back an entire day that had been lost to her until now.  
  
Time had been reversed. There was no way she could carry the memories of that day in her brain, where the Initiative sensors could have read and duplicated it. There was no way that a copy of Buffy, however sophisticated, could hold those moments.  
  
Which left her with but one conclusion.  
  
"I ... I'm real?" she whispered. "I'm ... Buffy?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
Without warning the dream world around them collapsed. Giles, who had been silently watching the exchange from the sidelines, found himself violently returned to his own body, falling onto his back as the crimson metal webbing that had tied them together vanished.  
  
"Giles!"  
  
Immediately the others were there, voices falling all over each other, demanding to know what had happened. Giles looked up and a smile spread on his face.  
  
In the middle of the circle Angel knelt, a once-again thoroughly human- looking Buffy buried in his arms.  
  
"I didn't forget," she murmured between sobs. "I didn't forget!"  
  
"I know." Angel held her as she cried, tears shining in his own eyes. "I know."  
  
Everyone watched them, the two completely oblivious to the outside world, then Giles slowly got back to his feet.  
  
"I believe our undertaking was a complete and utter success," he told the others happily.  
  
"Great," Xander sighed dramatically. "Buff's back for five seconds and all over deadboy already."  
  
"Shut up, Xander," Giles and Willow said at the same time, grinning.  
  
TO BE CONCLUDED 


	7. Part 7

Part 7:  
  
#  
  
"I hate this," Buffy murmured as they broke their hug, staring up into Angel's eyes.  
  
"I know, Buffy, but ..."  
  
"I know, I know. We both need some time."  
  
It was shortly after dusk, about a week after their little foray into Buffy's mind. Angel was packing up his things for the return to LA.  
  
"I'm just a phone call away," he told her, brushing his hand across her cheek. "If there is anything, or even if you just need to talk, call me!"  
  
"I will."  
  
They had spent many hours talking already. Talking about themselves, about Buffy's new state of being, of what it meant for them.  
  
Of the 112 minds inside of her, not counting herself and Anne, most were gone now. While the prospect of death due to Buffy's self-destruction had intimidated them, none of them were particularly happy with this kind of half-life either. So most of them had deleted themselves from her personality grid, choosing to go on to whatever afterlife might wait for them, leaving the void filled with only herself, Anne, and about half a dozen others that weren't ready to go yet.  
  
One of the ones who had gone on was Riley. Buffy had talked to him before he left, trying to understand why he had betrayed her the way he did. Hearing his thoughts, knowing what had gone through him during that time, she wasn't sure that she forgave him for it, but she couldn't find it in herself to hate him, either. So when Riley deleted himself from her mind she waved him goodbye, wondering where all those minds might be going now.  
  
Among the ones who decided to stick around for the moment was, unfortunately, Maggy Walsh. Buffy had been very tempted to hit the delete button herself. As primary personality of Adam One she could do that. She might do it yet, but for the moment she had more important things on her mind.  
  
Like her and Angel's upcoming separation.  
  
It wouldn't be permanent this time, that much they agreed upon. But Angel had built himself a life in Los Angeles and couldn't just abandon it. And Buffy had to admit that his time apart from her had helped him grow. The perpetual shadow of guilt that had always clouded his handsome features was still there, but it seemed lighter than before.  
  
As for the Hellmouth, Faith was quickly growing into her role as the one and only Slayer, even to the point of having accepted Rose McNamara as her Watcher. From what Buffy had seen these first few days they should work well together. Rose was a woman of sheer infinite patience and had enough humor in her stuffy British exterior to click together with the formerly rogue Slayer.  
  
So theoretically that left Buffy free to do whatever she wanted.  
  
Her first impulse had been to accompany Angel to Los Angeles. He would certainly not have said no. After going through the last few weeks, believing her dead, finding her again, then again fearing she might be gone, he was quite sure that living apart from her was not something he would be able to do for any length of time.  
  
Most of his arguments for leaving her in the first place no longer applied. Buffy wasn't human anymore, so a normal life, whatever that might have meant to a Slayer, was not an issue. Anne had confirmed that she would not age, though with increasing control of the Adam One form she would be able to fake it. She would never be able to have children, either.  
  
There was still the curse, of course, but upon seeing their heartfelt reunion Willow had promised to do her best to find a way around that. Tara, Willow's new friend, had promised to help as well, so with two witches on the job that might just be a matter of time.  
  
Time Buffy would need to get used to her new state of being. No matter how much she wanted to get back together with Angel on the spot, she knew that she had to figure out herself first. She was Buffy, that much she knew now. Deep inside she was still the same girl she had always been. Everything else, though, was up for discovery.  
  
"I miss you already," she told Angel, clutching his hand.  
  
"This is only for the time being." He smiled at her. "Come to LA when you're ready. Or call me and I'll come here."  
  
"I know."  
  
They shared one last kiss, a seeming eternity with the world outside completely unimportant, then they parted. Angel climbed into his black convertible, waved, and then he was gone.  
  
~I miss him, too,~ Anne said.  
  
"You would." Buffy smiled wistfully. "You're patterned after me, remember? How could you not miss him?"  
  
~I think I'd like him even without your feelings and memories to draw on. He's yummy.~  
  
That caused Buffy to laugh. Having Anne inside of her 24-7 was something she was almost used to already. The AI had turned out to be a great companion and that had nothing to do with the fact that they were, essentially, of one mind. No matter their many similarities Anne was her own person, was busily developing her own quirks and knacks, essentially going through digital puberty in a matter of days. She was, after all, only three weeks old.  
  
~Have you thought some more about college?~ Anne changed the topic.  
  
Sunnydale College had closed down due to the explosion of Lowell House, giving its students a very early spring break. Classes were due to start again a week from now, though, and Buffy still wasn't sure whether she should return.  
  
"What can they teach me anyway?" she asked Anne as she made her way toward the cemetery for her patrol. Faith or not, Sunnydale had enough graveyards for both of them to cover without taking Vampires away from each other. "I mean, I do have all of Maggy Walsh's knowledge to draw on in here, not to mention everything the 111 other minds knew."  
  
~Maybe, but having that information in your database is not the same as knowing it.~  
  
"You sound like a teacher yourself now. I certainly never sound like that. Do I?"  
  
~Only when it comes to slaying, don't worry. You still have another week to decide about college, so don't rush it.~  
  
There was silence in her head for a while, but then Anne spoke up again.  
  
~Hey Buffy!~  
  
"Yes?"  
  
~I just found a time-delayed message that Colleen left for you.~  
  
Colleen Wing, the mage that had worked the magical part of the 314 experiment, had also decided to leave for the unknown. Buffy was a bit sad about that, as the witch had seemed to be a rather nice person. If one disregarded the fact that she had participated in the 314 experiment in the first place, of course.  
  
"What does it say?"  
  
~It says ... oh!~  
  
"What? Something bad?"  
  
~I don't think so.~ Buffy could have sworn that Anne was smirking right now.  
  
"What is it then?"  
  
~Okay, here goes: Honestly, why would you want two amateur witches like those girls to work on your loverboy's curse when you have one of the most complete databases on magical spells right here at your beck and call. Just take a look at the folder I have marked ... Gypsy Magic.~  
  
Buffy almost stumbled.  
  
"You mean ...?"  
  
~Think you might want to take Angel up on that phone call a little sooner than planned?~ Anne asked playfully.  
  
"Let me think about that for a second or two."  
  
The local Vampires were quite relived when they saw the Slayer running away from the cemetery as fast as she could. Now if only they could stay out of sight of that other, dark-haired Slayer everything would be ...  
  
"I love being the Slayer," Faith shouted.  
  
Or not.  
  
THE END 


End file.
